Bee conservation policy at the global, regional and national levels Andrew Byrne, Úna Fitzpatrick To cite this version: Andrew Byrne, Úna Fitzpatrick. Bee conservation policy at the global, regional and national levels. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 2009, 40 (3), 10.1051/apido/2009017. hal-00892008 HAL Id: hal-00892008 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892008 Submitted on 1 Jan 2009 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Apidologie 40 (2009) 194–210 Available online at: c INRA/DIB-AGIB/EDP Sciences, 2009 www.apidologie.org DOI: 10.1051/apido/2009017 Review article Bee conservation policy at the global, regional and national levels* Andrew Byrne,ÚnaFitzpatrick National Biodiversity Data Centre, Beechfield House, WIT West Campus, Carriganore, Waterford, Ireland Received 13 August 2008 – Revised 10 January 2009 – Accepted 27 January 2009 Abstract – Bees are important both ecologically and economically for the ecosystem service role they play as pollinators. Documented global decline in bees has sparked the formation of a global policy framework for pollinators, primarily through the International Pollinator Initiative within the Convention of Biologi- cal Diversity. There are now regional Pollinator Initiatives, along with regional and national conservation legislation, that can impact on the conservation of bees. The creation of bee Regional Red Lists, under guidance from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, along with conservation priority lists offer another mechanism for streamlining bees into regional, national or subnational conservation policy and practice. These structures, if utilised properly, can form a coordinated and effective policy framework on which conservation actions can be based. conservation / policy / bee / international pollinator initiative / legislation 1. INTRODUCTION $65–75 billion globally (Pimentel et al., 1997) and honeybee pollination alone in the United Insects are the most important animal States was evaluated at $14.6 billion in 2000 pollinator groups, with approximately 70% (Morse and Calderone, 2000). Bees are often of angiosperm plants being insect pollinated considered keystone species in ecosystems, (Schoonhoven et al., 1998). Among the pol- thus bee loss or decline can result in reduced linating insects, bees are one of the most fruit and seed-set in plants and can lead to important and specialised groups (Danforth disruption of plant-pollinator networks lead- et al., 2006). There are over 19500 valid ing to possible extinction cascades (Steffan- species of bee on the planet described thus Dewenter and Tscharntke, 1999; Waser and far (Ascher et al., 2008), though there are Ollerton, 2006). There has been widespread likely to be many more species that are to be concern over the status of bees worldwide in described (Michener, 2000). Morphologically recent decades (Allen-Wardell et al., 1998; bees are adapted to collect, manipulate, trans- Kearns et al., 1998) with a number of publi- port and store pollen very effectively and ef- cations documenting large scale declines (e.g. ficiently (Thorp, 2000; Danforth et al., 2006). Corbet et al., 1991; Buchman and Nablan, Bees species exhibit both generalist and spe- 1996; Kremen and Ricketts, 2000; Biesmeijer cialist foraging behaviour, thus making them et al., 2006). very important economically and ecologically (Waser and Ollerton, 2006). Economically, an- There are a number of existing policy plat- imal pollination services have been valued at forms that impact on the conservation of the world’s bee fauna. These frameworks oper- Corresponding author: A. Byrne, ate at a number of political and geographi- [email protected] cal hierarchical levels, from global to regional * Manuscript editor: Robert Paxton and national initiatives. All these policies must Article published by EDP Sciences Bee conservation policy 195 ultimately impact at the national and local produced, and it was in this document that level, which is where most actions are brought an International Pollinator Initiative (IPI) was into practice. proposed (Imperatriz-Fonseca and Dias, 2004; In this paper we review some of the global, Freitas et al., 2009). The IPI was officially regional and national policies and legislation formed in May 2000 at the 5th Conference that impact bee conservation. This will enable to the Parties (COP5) of the CBD in Nairobi, us to highlight the policies that work well and Kenya with the endorsement of the São Paulo where further developments could be made. Declaration. The executive secretary of the Specifically we aim to describe what we see as CBD invited the Food and Agriculture Agency the major policy frameworks, and how they in- (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) to facili- terrelate and effect real change on the ground. tate and coordinate the IPI in cooperation with other relevant organisations. The FAO, in col- laboration with key experts, developed a Plan 2. THE INTERNATIONAL of Action (POA) for the IPI. This plan, which POLLINATOR INITIATIVE built on recommendations from the São Paulo OF THE CBD Declaration on Pollinators, was accepted and adopted by member countries at COP6 (April With respect to pollinators, there is an over- 2002). The IPI’s major role and objective is arching global framework in place that guides to “promote coordinated and proposed action initiatives at lower policy levels. This frame- worldwide” and it is the global policy platform work has a relatively short history. During the for pollinators, including bees. mid 1990’s global concern emerged regard- ing the survival of pollinator diversity from research within academic and other wildlife 2.1. International Pollinator institutional sources (Watanabe, 1994). From Initiative-Plan of Action (IPI-POA) this increased awareness “The Forgotten Polli- nators Campaign” was launched in 1995 in the This IPI-POA is an international agreement / United States. The campaign and an accom- that outlines guidance for improving and or panying book, of the same name (Buchmann developing policies and practices to enhance and Nabhan, 1996), were successful in pub- pollinator conservation and habitat restoration. // / licising this concern within North America. The IPI-POA (http: www.cbd.int The devisors of the campaign called for pol- decisions) was designed to promote a icy changes to protect habitats for pollina- number of aims that would be coordinated at tors and suggested subsidising farmers to do a global level (Williams, 2003). These aims so (Ingram et al., 1996). In 1996, the Third are summarised below (taken from Williams, Conference to the Parties (COP3) of the Con- 2003): vention on Biological Diversity (CBD) gave • Monitor pollinator decline, its causes and pollinators priority for the publication of case its impact on pollination services; studies in its agro-biodiversity programme. • Address the lack of taxonomic information The Convention on Biological Diversity legit- on pollinators; imised the global concerns through prioritising • Assess the economic value of pollination pollinators in their Conservation and Sustain- and the economic impact of decline of pol- able use of Agricultural Biological Diversity lination services; programme. This led to an international pol- • Promote the conservation and the restora- linator workshop, with the emphasis on bees, tion and sustainable use of pollinator diver- hosted by the Brazilian Government at the sity in agriculture and related ecosystems. University of São Paulo in October 1998 (Dias et al., 1999). A total of 61 scientists from 15 The plan itself has 4 elements: assessment, countries and 5 International organisations at- adaptive management, capacity building and tended. A result of this workshop, the “The mainstreaming. These elements each have re- São Paulo Declaration on Pollinators” was spective objectives, rationales and time frames 196 A. Byrne, Ú. Fitzpatrick with expected deliverables (found at: http:// policies that improve both bee diversity and www.cbd.int/agro/pow.shtml). In addition to economic output from agro-ecosystems devel- the IPI-POA, a book, edited by Eardley et al. oped. (2006), was produced. The book reflects the plan’s main elements along with case studies, references, recommendations and best prac- 2.1.2. Adaptive management tices, and acts as a valuable resource for policy makers and conservationists. Below are sum- The IPI-POA suggests that a strategy of im- maries of the plan’s four elements (adapted plementing adaptive management techniques from: International Pollinator Initiative Plan of be adopted nationally and transnationally with Action, 2002; Williams, 2003; Eardley et al., the specific goal of benefitting both crops 2006). and wildlife. Adaptive management relates to management of both pollinators and ecosys- tems; for example, importation of exotic pol- 2.1.1. Assessment of bees linators into a region has been shown to and their services be highly unfavourable to native bee species (Goulson et al., 2002; Goulson, 2003; Stout In the IPI-POA, implementation of prac- and Morales,